La Pompabour 1951, a line traced.The world knows him best as a master of vivid colour and sculptural form.
But the 50-year career of Henri Matisse also includes an astonishing proliferation of prints, in every possible medium and technique, as Edmonton is about to find out, first-hand. It's this rich, much-less-explored identity of the great French artist, one of the seminal figures in modern art, that inspires the touring exhibition Henri Matisse: A Celebration of Light and Line, opening Saturday at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
Matisse the painter and Matisse the sculptor have long occupied the cultural stage. Rarely seen at all, and never hitherto together, the 170 works in the show shed light on Matisse the printmaker, 1900 to 1951. The works were curated by Jay M. Fisher, the Baltimore Museum of Art's deputy director of curatorial affairs and senior curator of prints, drawings and photographs.
And Matisse is a remarkably innovative, dexterous and intense communicator, according to Fisher, who has supplemented some 150 etchings, mono-types, lithographs, linocuts, aquatints, drypoints, woodcuts and colour prints with a selection of related paintings, sculptures, drawings and even books.
What do they reveal about this wildly versatile artist? "You see Matisse's openness," says Fisher, on the phone from his Baltimore office. "You see his way of working; you experience, in a human way, how he transforms what he sees. ... You see evidence of change, of transformation, an evolution before your eyes, as an idea moves forward. Sometimes the print leads to the painting; in other cases, it's the other way around."
That "dynamic in terms of the spectator" is a Matisse signature in everything he created, Fisher explains. "Matisse worked devotedly in all of the media he undertook, and in an integrated way. ... But the wonderful thing about his printmaking is that he felt comfortable about explaining his creative process, the way he saw through things. It's just more evident in the prints."
Prints, after all, are made to be multiple, the curator points out. "The artist has made a decision to share."
"Often the prints are in series," Fisher says. "So you might see a model in the studio from 10 points of view, 10 different ways of looking at the same thing ... reclining, standing, seated, arms above head, facial expressions and features. ... There's a continuance of expression, and also a continual modification.
"In many works, he refers back to what he did earlier. His works are conversations: There's continuity, but always
development in a serial way to something new. ... Sometimes he works with one idea simultaneously in different mediums."
Fisher's arrangement of the exhibition is essentially chronological. "Matisse develops his ideas in a chronological way. ... It starts with painting, then drypoints and etching. Then a series of woodcuts and pen-and-ink drawings. Then he takes up lithography -- there's a chronological march to it.
"Artists are mostly all ahead of their time," argues Fisher. "But while Matisse tried new things and was sometimes avant-garde, he was not quite as anxious to be revolutionary as (his friend and rival Pablo) Picasso." His career spanned some of the most dramatic, turbulent and violent events of the 20th century, two World Wars, but you don't find tangible evidence in Matisse.
"There's a constancy and centred-ness about Matisse, who didn't come to the artist's life till he was in his 30s, too late to go to art school. He wasn't a prodigy; he had to work very hard to catch up."
"I don't think of him as an intellectual artist," says Fisher. "He didn't create a public persona. He painted within the experience of his own personal growth. It neutralizes any kind of (larger) narrative." In 1913, for example, while Europe headed precipitously toward war, Matisse was in his studio, experimenting with his early lithographs, "a point of radical change for him. ... It's so interesting to see these prints, so calm by comparison. So personal and intimate."
Sixty-seven of the prints in Henri Matisse: A Celebration of Light and Line are drawn from the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation collection. To them, Fisher has added works from the Baltimore Museum of Art's celebrated Cone Collection, the continent's largest repository of Matisse prints.
The AGA exhibition is double the size of the version on display in Austin, Texas, this past summer.
"A richer experience," says Fisher, who will deliver a sold-out introduction to the exhibition at the AGA Friday at 6 p.m. "More ways for you to test yourself: Why do you think he did it this way? What do you he think he was after? How has his attitude changed in the course of a series?"
"It really makes you look."
Another side of Henri Matisse
Art Gallery of Alberta exhibit sheds light on rarely seen prints of famous French painter, sculptor
By Liz Nicholls, Edmonton Journal
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/Another+side+Henri+Matisse/3731993/story.html?id=3731993&cid=megadrop_story
